Independence Not An Easy Goal For Our Patriots

July 02, 1985|by FRANK WHELAN, The Morning Call

The line in front of the National Archives Building starts early on a Saturday morning. Black and brown, yellow and white, they wait patiently under the hot Washington sun. Gradually filtering past the huge bronze doors, the line forms to the left. Conversation suddenly lapses into the hushed whispers usually heard in church.

The primary goal of most of the pilgrims soon comes into view. There, in its patriotic tabernacle of marble and bronze, is America's birth certificate, the Declaration of Independence. Children and old folks, well-dressed and casual, all surge toward the document that declared the new nation's identity to the world.

It is hard to imagine that any document produced in our own time will ever enjoy the status of the Declaration of Independence. Today, 209 years after the Declaration was written, it seems hard to believe that the events of that time were real. Even a mere 25 years afterward, some of the participants images were modeled into monuments.

In 1790, Declaration signer John Adams wrote fellow signer Benjamin Rush, voicing frustration at the mythology already surrounding the events of 1776. "The history of our Revolution," Adams wrote, "will be one continuous lie from one end to the other. The essence of the whole will be that Doctor Franklin's electrical rod smote the earth and out sprang General Washington. Then Franklin electrified him with his rod, and thenceforward these two conducted all the policies, negotiations, legislatures and war."

Over the years, the myths grew larger. For example, Continental Congress President John Hancock, had his extra-large signature turned into mythology. It was 50 years after his death that the legend started that he wrote as he did, "so King George the III could read it without his spectacles." Actually no one knows for sure why Hancock, a somewhat vain man, wrote in such large script.

Another line, put in the mouth of Benjamin Franklin a half-century after the signing, "We had better hang together or we will all hang separately," is also in doubt.

Perhaps the most ironic thing is that Independence Day is celebrated on July 4 at all. John Adams felt that July 2, the day the Congress voted to accept the resolution declaring the colonies, "free and independent states," was the actual nativity of the United States.

The men who gathered in Philadelphia's State House in 1776 were not radicals, at least not the way the term is used today. Most were lawyers and many had studied in England and were respected members of the system theywere about to cast off. They had no mandate to ask for separation from the British empire. New Englanders called loudest for independence. Virginia had its share of radicals, but most of the middle and southern colonies hung back from the ultimate step of breaking with the mother country.

But the leaders of the Second Continental Congress knew that relations with England were at the breaking point. Writing to a British friend, a bookish, freckle-faced 33-year-old Virginia planter and delegate, Thomas Jefferson, said, "We want neither inducement nor power to declare and assert a separation. It is will, alone, that is wanting, and that is growing apace under the fostering hand of our King."

One of the most ardent supporters of such a separation was Boston patriot Samuel Adams. A master of back-room politics, this cousin of John Adams had been the brains behind the most radical wing of the Colonial movement. A political wire-puller from way back, Sam Adams could have learned little from Chicago's legendary machine. And never was he more in his element than at Philadelphia in the summer of 1776. In the drawing-rooms and taverns of Philadelphia he lobbied hard among the undecided delegates for independence.

Fortunately for Sam Adams, outside events were also moving his way. On May 15, Virginia had voted to give its delegates in Congress power to vote for independence. It enabled the chief focus of Sam Adams' attention, pro- independence Virginia planter Richard Henry Lee, to act.

On June 7, it was Lee who said in public what many people had been whispering about in private. "Resolved," his statement began, "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of GreatBritain is, and ought to be totally dissolved." Coupled with plans to ask for foreign aid and the establishment of a new confederation of state governments, the resolution was seconded by John Adams.

It was a significant event in that it forced the various delegates to take a stand on this issue. Many of the moderates were up in arms. They pointed out that they had no authority from their states to take this step. Not wanting to create a split in the ranks, Congress postponed debate over Lee's resolution until July 1. This would enable the concerned delegates to talk to the colonial legislatures at home.